Europeans know firsthand what happens if you don't shut a one-testicled gravelly voiced lunatic with a toothbrush moustache the hell up.
Count your blessings that the most hateful people in your country will ever be likely to do again (keep in mind we're ignoring the Native American massacres, slavery etc) would be to show up on Jerry Springer and hit each other with folding chairs, or get REALLY REALLY wrinkly necks and start their own radio talk show about morality.
this is one of the few postings where "Beowulf Cluster" is appropriate?
Let me ask this question, apart from displaying REALLY nifty graphics, what advantage is there REALLY in bundling 400 PS2s rather than bundling 400 normal CPUs to do defense work?
Somehow I can't see weapons trajectory work being hacked into a beowulf of PS2s.
What I could see though is that being a proposal on the purchase order "We need 400 of these units, pizza, and 400 copies of Tekken XV in order to do vital defense work. Include 3,000 bottles of Jolt, a picture of Natalie Portman and some hot grits and we have this beat America thing down cold."
It would seem to me that airships would be an incredible way to travel short - to - medium length distances.
You could travel as the crow flies, at a low enough altitude to not affect air traffic but at a high enough altitude to get a cool view, and I don't know about the energy costs of pushing it around but it would seem to me to be less than that of running jets to keep a plane aloft...
It would appear to be a more leisurely, train-like way of travel without the awkwardness of having to run across train lines (going around mountains, there's a piece of metal on the track, sorry for the seven hour delay, etc)
Sounds like the marketing droids who are coming up with Banner Ads 2.0 - the Next Generation; your web page WILL be replaced by our ad for 15 seconds at a time.
The idea is to suck the soul out THROUGH the eyeballs. Two for one deal. Yuk.
This is the most important part of that link you sent:
"However, in the Tribunal's view, in order to declare the complainant's proposal compliant, the Department had no choice but to evaluate the software proposed in the complainant's offer and submitted for evaluation. This software had to be capable of importing PowerPoint version 4.0 files. The software submitted by the complainant failed to meet this requirement."
Whether or not you think it's fair or not is immaterial. The fact that they didn't show up with the correct version makes no difference. Rules are rules, and investigation of the whole thing proved the reviewers right.
Before email, people tended to use the TELEPHONE to send messages back and forward. This was an appliance that allowed voice to voice communications over a limited protocol using (at its latest version) typically a seven digit address.
Previous to that, they would send messages via a binary transmission device called a TELEGRAPH that sent information in an encoded format called Morse.
Previous to this, a similar mode of transmission was required which used a waxed string and two aluminium "cans".
Previous to this, people wrote the information on a flat media such as paper or vellum with ink or graphite in a stylus configuration, and then gave it to a messenger of some kind to relay said message to the recipient.
Previous to this, it was incumbent to transmit the information via speech, but this mode of communication was primitive and limited inasmuch as attachments were impossible, and you were required to be at a limited distance from the recipient (a variable distance called earshot depending on the configuration of the recipient).
Other protocols were used - namely trasmitting information by binary flashes of light, using flags in differing configurations, sending plumes of smoke....
RE: the Canadian military switched from WordPerfect to Microsoft(this is after having been standardized on WordPerfect for over 10 years).
I remember that - Corel decided to harass/investigate DND because they felt that the contract should have been awarded to them. Knowing some of the people who made that decision, I can safely say that the decision was the right one. Microsoft showed up on time with a product that worked and fit the spec.
Corel's demo blew up - they said they would come back the following week with a better version that had those things fixed.
DND doesn't allow "second chances" - "well, wait, I realise that what we're presenting doesn't work, let's just pump the handle a couple of times and try again". They can't. It's procedure.
If they'd wanted those contracts, they should have learned to read specs, and to code programs that fit same.
For starters, let's say that I've a lot of respect for what Mr. Lanier achieved in the early 90s with VR, and understand that whole pop-semiotics/Mondo 2000/Boing Boing/Modern Primitive/Cyber-everything vibe he's coming from.
But allow me to reiterate that HARDWARE has a DEFINED FUNCTION. Bits go in, other bits go out. Key gets turned, engine starts. I buy a car and a plane and a boat - I don't expect to buy one vehicle that can fly, swim and roll on dry land.
His problems with modern software stem from his paradoxical and contrary wishes for software engineering.
Lanier seems to have a scattergun theory as to why software sucks. It's either "the engineering isn't there" (definition A) , and/or "what it does for the customer doesn't empower him" (definition B).
To the first part I say software is considered by its mercurial nature not only something that CAN'T be engineered, but MUSTN'T be engineered. Cause if you make plans and stick to them, then marketing can't decide at the 11th hour to retool everything to include holographic agents and a Star Trek like voice input (after a night of cocaine and "brainstorming"). To whichever jackass points me to "if programmers built buildings a woodpecker could destroy civilisation" I say "make up your goddamn mind whether you want a condo or a three storey house BEFORE we pour the concrete, and we'll talk." No other form of engineering comes up with the ludicrous idea that plans are mere suggestions and subject to change at any time, to produce a product with no real set function (is Word a word processor, a typesetting program, or an HTML editor? MAKE UP YOUR MINDS).
However, coming up with small, ruthlessly efficient software entities sounds like UNIX, which he says sucks by definition B of his rant.
As for his ideas that programming languages and interfaces should be humancentric, let me put it this way - computers process DISCRETE SYMBOLIC pieces of information, humans process PATTERNS and CONVOLUTIONS. I don't expect my shovel to shovel my walk for me, why should I expect my computer to respond to me drawing out what I want with magical icons and lines and all other forms of strange ideas when it comes to PROGRAMMING? (Visual Language?) Any machine that can accomplish such a feat would have so much software bloat by definition it sucks by definition A. A computer is a tool, not a mystical genie that's going to solve my problems for me. If I want a secure Internet connection, it behooves me to either learn how TCP/IP works, or hire someone who does. The answer is not to have a big red button that says "secure my system" cause I can assure you, on a system like that, someone's working on a big GREEN button that says "hack this system."
Most software sucks because people don't want to take the time to figure out what it should do or who wants it. Marketing seems to think that rather than research what a product should do and who to sell it to, it's just there to listen to every potential customer ("I want a minivan". "I want a sports car." "I want a quarter ton pickup") and spit back every ludicrous request ("We've got to come up with a sports quarter ton minivan!"). Management seems to think that rather than getting specific specs by a specific deadline and then staffing the needs of the project, giving the engineers and testers the tools, and then getting the hell out of the way, it's all about constant "meetings" and Microsoft Project bar charts.
Irrespective of how it's spoofed, otherwise dressed up to look like something it wasn't, etc. any content whatsoever coming from that IP or any other IP that points to it is to be blocked.
The AMD K7 whomps the PIII and in some instances, the P4, while being cheaper.
The K7 to my knowledge doesn't have a serial number on it that other people can happily query for.
Whereas it's possible for the P4 to be faster at new software compiled and built with new extensions, etc. The Athlon is faster at what's running now and appears to be a better PIII than the PIII.
M$ will track documents by serial number and PREVENT YOU from opening documents written by someone who hasn't kept up with his Office 11 bill...
"Hey! How come I can't open the status report from two months ago?"
"Oh, apparently they went out of business and their license for Office was revoked. If we pay a $5 fee they'll let us transfer that document to our license."
I have AMD machines now and when the dual-Athlon DDR SMP motherboards come out (purr purr) I will be getting another one.
A lot of the benchmarks, etc. claim that certain things are bettered by optimisations, saying that recompiling or rebuilding with P4 or Athlon optimising in place will radically change the numbers.
So for the Linux/FreeBSD crowd in the know: given that we rebuild kernels, what are going to be the chances that gcc and/or buildscripts are going to support/offer optimisations for either the P4 or the Athlon? I think the PentiumGCC people are working on K6/Pentium optimisation, any chance of it going further?
I'd hate to think that but for the want of code optimisation options for my silicon, I'd be unable to take full advantage...
Nor am I. But someone's religious beliefs shouldn't be a bar to them holding office. I suppose you'd be happy to say that a Jewish candidate isn't acceptable cause he supports stoning women to death, or that Hindu candidates aren't valid because they believe the universe fell out of the birth canal of a cow, or for that matter, let's exclude Joe Clark and Jean Chretien because they believe that virgins can give birth.
No, of course not. And your anti-Western bigotry is showing. Good job I didn't learn that growing up in Ontario: I would never have moved West, thinking them all to be rednecks, and I never would have moved to the USA, believing them to be gun-toting psychos. But then again, if you can swallow propaganda,
It's not just dot-coms down here, you know. There ARE legitimate businesses as well. And strangely enough, it's amazing how much brain-drain has happened pulling Canadian tech people and entrepreneurs here where people can ACTUALLY make a living and ACTUALLY keep some of their money, unlike in Canada.
If you're trying to tell me that Canada has less taxes than the USA, you need your head seeing to.
RE: Well, south of the border, I see massive internet market consolidation (that is, businesses being bought up). 130 US net firms have gone bankrupt since January, and November is moving along at a rate of more than one per day. Canadian businesses seem to be doing better than that, not worse.
Cause Canadians never HAD that business to consolidate.
RE: One might wonder why it's the high-tax jurisdictions in the US (MA, CA, NY) that have done so well with the new economy. Don't high taxes inhibit economic growth? Look at that barren wasteland of innovation, Silicon Valley.
Funnily enough though, all these corporations are "a Delaware Corporation". There's no Canadian equivalent.
"Free" health care ISN'T, and judging from cross-border hospital visits, it's falling apart. Also, it costs you in taxes. Note that under the Liberal government university tuition went up, payments for medicare went from the agreed-on and promised 50c on the dollar to 11c on the dollar. They're not paying for social security, medicare, education or anything else even though they're gouging the hell out of businesses and the middle class on up.
The Liberals use the high taxes instead to bulk-move billions of dollars to their friends and influential supporters, (how many RCMP investigations of this being done illegally, never mind immorally?) building fountains in rivers, funding dumb blonde joke books, financing porn films, and giving undue assistance where the Prime Minister personally financially benefits.
RE: Let me guess, you think that a Bible-thumpin', Creationist, scientific ignoramus redneck would be better for Canada
That would be like describing Chretien as a Catholic, criminal, ineffectual do-nothing frog, but I don't stoop to that level of debate, nor would I show Mr. Chretien, irrespective of RCMP allegations against him and his ties to Cuba, that level of disrespect.
Lower taxes would in fact help Canada GREATLY. It would certainly stop Canada's best and brightest from working in the US cause they're tired of seeing more than half their paycheque going to the HDRC, Sheila Copps' billion dollar "write in, get a flag" campaign, etc.
Liberals have never understood that lower taxes leads to greater prosperity and better revenue. Don't believe me, believe the Nobel-prize-winning economist who says the CA IS RIGHT ON TRACK.
Let me guess, you're a Web designer for the CBC. Well go back to kissing up to Jason Moskovitch.
Which means that they have tons of crap to deal with, like charging the GST (Goods and Services Tax) - paying outrageous amounts of employee taxes, collecting confiscatory amounts of income tax, etc.
Kind of hard to compete internationally when you have a communist dictator for the leader of your country who seems to think any kind of profit you make should be siphoned off to fatten his home district.
A lot of Canadian businesses are going under and/or being sold simply because of the crap economy to the North, and the level of taxation and red tape there is choking the life out of what's left.
Slashdot Mirror
Look at it this way -
Europeans know firsthand what happens if you don't shut a one-testicled gravelly voiced lunatic with a toothbrush moustache the hell up.
Count your blessings that the most hateful people in your country will ever be likely to do again (keep in mind we're ignoring the Native American massacres, slavery etc) would be to show up on Jerry Springer and hit each other with folding chairs, or get REALLY REALLY wrinkly necks and start their own radio talk show about morality.
this is one of the few postings where "Beowulf Cluster" is appropriate?
Let me ask this question, apart from displaying REALLY nifty graphics, what advantage is there REALLY in bundling 400 PS2s rather than bundling 400 normal CPUs to do defense work?
Somehow I can't see weapons trajectory work being hacked into a beowulf of PS2s.
What I could see though is that being a proposal on the purchase order "We need 400 of these units, pizza, and 400 copies of Tekken XV in order to do vital defense work. Include 3,000 bottles of Jolt, a picture of Natalie Portman and some hot grits and we have this beat America thing down cold."
It would seem to me that airships would be an incredible way to travel short - to - medium length distances.
You could travel as the crow flies, at a low enough altitude to not affect air traffic but at a high enough altitude to get a cool view, and I don't know about the energy costs of pushing it around but it would seem to me to be less than that of running jets to keep a plane aloft...
It would appear to be a more leisurely, train-like way of travel without the awkwardness of having to run across train lines (going around mountains, there's a piece of metal on the track, sorry for the seven hour delay, etc)
Sounds like the marketing droids who are coming up with Banner Ads 2.0 - the Next Generation; your web page WILL be replaced by our ad for 15 seconds at a time.
The idea is to suck the soul out THROUGH the eyeballs. Two for one deal. Yuk.
This is the most important part of that link you sent:
"However, in the Tribunal's view, in order to declare the complainant's proposal compliant, the Department had no choice but to evaluate the software proposed in the complainant's offer and submitted for evaluation. This software had to be capable of importing PowerPoint version 4.0 files. The software submitted by the complainant failed to meet this requirement."
Whether or not you think it's fair or not is immaterial. The fact that they didn't show up with the correct version makes no difference. Rules are rules, and investigation of the whole thing proved the reviewers right.
Before email, people tended to use the TELEPHONE to send messages back and forward. This was an appliance that allowed voice to voice communications over a limited protocol using (at its latest version) typically a seven digit address.
Previous to that, they would send messages via a binary transmission device called a TELEGRAPH that sent information in an encoded format called Morse.
Previous to this, a similar mode of transmission was required which used a waxed string and two aluminium "cans".
Previous to this, people wrote the information on a flat media such as paper or vellum with ink or graphite in a stylus configuration, and then gave it to a messenger of some kind to relay said message to the recipient.
Previous to this, it was incumbent to transmit the information via speech, but this mode of communication was primitive and limited inasmuch as attachments were impossible, and you were required to be at a limited distance from the recipient (a variable distance called earshot depending on the configuration of the recipient).
Other protocols were used - namely trasmitting information by binary flashes of light, using flags in differing configurations, sending plumes of smoke....
RE: the Canadian military switched from WordPerfect to Microsoft(this is after having been standardized on WordPerfect for over 10 years).
I remember that - Corel decided to harass/investigate DND because they felt that the contract should have been awarded to them. Knowing some of the people who made that decision, I can safely say that the decision was the right one. Microsoft showed up on time with a product that worked and fit the spec.
Corel's demo blew up - they said they would come back the following week with a better version that had those things fixed.
DND doesn't allow "second chances" - "well, wait, I realise that what we're presenting doesn't work, let's just pump the handle a couple of times and try again". They can't. It's procedure.
If they'd wanted those contracts, they should have learned to read specs, and to code programs that fit same.
For starters, let's say that I've a lot of respect for what Mr. Lanier achieved in the early 90s with VR, and understand that whole pop-semiotics/Mondo 2000/Boing Boing/Modern Primitive/Cyber-everything vibe he's coming from.
But allow me to reiterate that HARDWARE has a DEFINED FUNCTION. Bits go in, other bits go out. Key gets turned, engine starts. I buy a car and a plane and a boat - I don't expect to buy one vehicle that can fly, swim and roll on dry land. His problems with modern software stem from his paradoxical and contrary wishes for software engineering.
Lanier seems to have a scattergun theory as to why software sucks. It's either "the engineering isn't there" (definition A) , and/or "what it does for the customer doesn't empower him" (definition B).
To the first part I say software is considered by its mercurial nature not only something that CAN'T be engineered, but MUSTN'T be engineered. Cause if you make plans and stick to them, then marketing can't decide at the 11th hour to retool everything to include holographic agents and a Star Trek like voice input (after a night of cocaine and "brainstorming"). To whichever jackass points me to "if programmers built buildings a woodpecker could destroy civilisation" I say "make up your goddamn mind whether you want a condo or a three storey house BEFORE we pour the concrete, and we'll talk." No other form of engineering comes up with the ludicrous idea that plans are mere suggestions and subject to change at any time, to produce a product with no real set function (is Word a word processor, a typesetting program, or an HTML editor? MAKE UP YOUR MINDS). However, coming up with small, ruthlessly efficient software entities sounds like UNIX, which he says sucks by definition B of his rant.
As for his ideas that programming languages and interfaces should be humancentric, let me put it this way - computers process DISCRETE SYMBOLIC pieces of information, humans process PATTERNS and CONVOLUTIONS. I don't expect my shovel to shovel my walk for me, why should I expect my computer to respond to me drawing out what I want with magical icons and lines and all other forms of strange ideas when it comes to PROGRAMMING? (Visual Language?) Any machine that can accomplish such a feat would have so much software bloat by definition it sucks by definition A. A computer is a tool, not a mystical genie that's going to solve my problems for me. If I want a secure Internet connection, it behooves me to either learn how TCP/IP works, or hire someone who does. The answer is not to have a big red button that says "secure my system" cause I can assure you, on a system like that, someone's working on a big GREEN button that says "hack this system."
Most software sucks because people don't want to take the time to figure out what it should do or who wants it. Marketing seems to think that rather than research what a product should do and who to sell it to, it's just there to listen to every potential customer ("I want a minivan". "I want a sports car." "I want a quarter ton pickup") and spit back every ludicrous request ("We've got to come up with a sports quarter ton minivan!"). Management seems to think that rather than getting specific specs by a specific deadline and then staffing the needs of the project, giving the engineers and testers the tools, and then getting the hell out of the way, it's all about constant "meetings" and Microsoft Project bar charts.
You thought Mortal Kombat was bad: Mortal Kombat's SEQUEL was WAY WORSE.
1) Any alpha-blending code out there for us graphical newbies who want to see how it's done? .deb yet?
2) Second, has EFM been released as a
Dude, I work in the USA and I pay social security, and taxes even, but as a non-American citizen, I have no rights to benefits of same.
If they're so bloody good at visual perception...
why do they keep sh^tting on my car thinking it's a body of water?
Yet another egghead theory shot down by common sense.
Irrespective of how it's spoofed, otherwise dressed up to look like something it wasn't, etc. any content whatsoever coming from that IP or any other IP that points to it is to be blocked.
The AMD K7 whomps the PIII and in some instances, the P4, while being cheaper.
The K7 to my knowledge doesn't have a serial number on it that other people can happily query for.
Whereas it's possible for the P4 to be faster at new software compiled and built with new extensions, etc. The Athlon is faster at what's running now and appears to be a better PIII than the PIII.
SMP + Slightly upped MHZ = sweet right now.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they ain't out ta getcha.
Are you effing serious?
Oh my God am I ever glad I left that country for the USA for GOOD.
Nice to know the Canadian Government believes free software to be worth $220. That's probably what Corel is charging them.
M$ will track documents by serial number and PREVENT YOU from opening documents written by someone who hasn't kept up with his Office 11 bill...
"Hey! How come I can't open the status report from two months ago?"
"Oh, apparently they went out of business and their license for Office was revoked. If we pay a $5 fee they'll let us transfer that document to our license."
Here's a question I've got.
I have AMD machines now and when the dual-Athlon DDR SMP motherboards come out (purr purr) I will be getting another one.
A lot of the benchmarks, etc. claim that certain things are bettered by optimisations, saying that recompiling or rebuilding with P4 or Athlon optimising in place will radically change the numbers.
So for the Linux/FreeBSD crowd in the know: given that we rebuild kernels, what are going to be the chances that gcc and/or buildscripts are going to support/offer optimisations for either the P4 or the Athlon? I think the PentiumGCC people are working on K6/Pentium optimisation, any chance of it going further?
I'd hate to think that but for the want of code optimisation options for my silicon, I'd be unable to take full advantage...
Nor am I. But someone's religious beliefs shouldn't be a bar to them holding office. I suppose you'd be happy to say that a Jewish candidate isn't acceptable cause he supports stoning women to death, or that Hindu candidates aren't valid because they believe the universe fell out of the birth canal of a cow, or for that matter, let's exclude Joe Clark and Jean Chretien because they believe that virgins can give birth. No, of course not. And your anti-Western bigotry is showing. Good job I didn't learn that growing up in Ontario: I would never have moved West, thinking them all to be rednecks, and I never would have moved to the USA, believing them to be gun-toting psychos. But then again, if you can swallow propaganda,
What do you mean, "nice try though?"
It's not just dot-coms down here, you know. There ARE legitimate businesses as well. And strangely enough, it's amazing how much brain-drain has happened pulling Canadian tech people and entrepreneurs here where people can ACTUALLY make a living and ACTUALLY keep some of their money, unlike in Canada.
If you're trying to tell me that Canada has less taxes than the USA, you need your head seeing to.
RE: Well, south of the border, I see massive internet market consolidation (that is, businesses being bought up). 130 US net firms have gone bankrupt since January, and November is moving along at a rate of more than one per day. Canadian businesses seem to be doing better than that, not worse.
Cause Canadians never HAD that business to consolidate.
RE: One might wonder why it's the high-tax jurisdictions in the US (MA, CA, NY) that have done so well with the new economy. Don't high taxes inhibit economic growth? Look at that barren wasteland of innovation, Silicon Valley.
Funnily enough though, all these corporations are "a Delaware Corporation". There's no Canadian equivalent.
"Free" health care ISN'T, and judging from cross-border hospital visits, it's falling apart. Also, it costs you in taxes. Note that under the Liberal government university tuition went up, payments for medicare went from the agreed-on and promised 50c on the dollar to 11c on the dollar. They're not paying for social security, medicare, education or anything else even though they're gouging the hell out of businesses and the middle class on up.
The Liberals use the high taxes instead to bulk-move billions of dollars to their friends and influential supporters, (how many RCMP investigations of this being done illegally, never mind immorally?) building fountains in rivers, funding dumb blonde joke books, financing porn films, and giving undue assistance where the Prime Minister personally financially benefits.
RE: Let me guess, you think that a Bible-thumpin', Creationist, scientific ignoramus redneck would be better for Canada
That would be like describing Chretien as a Catholic, criminal, ineffectual do-nothing frog, but I don't stoop to that level of debate, nor would I show Mr. Chretien, irrespective of RCMP allegations against him and his ties to Cuba, that level of disrespect.
Lower taxes would in fact help Canada GREATLY. It would certainly stop Canada's best and brightest from working in the US cause they're tired of seeing more than half their paycheque going to the HDRC, Sheila Copps' billion dollar "write in, get a flag" campaign, etc.
Liberals have never understood that lower taxes leads to greater prosperity and better revenue. Don't believe me, believe the Nobel-prize-winning economist who says the CA IS RIGHT ON TRACK.
Let me guess, you're a Web designer for the CBC. Well go back to kissing up to Jason Moskovitch.
Which means that they have tons of crap to deal with, like charging the GST (Goods and Services Tax) - paying outrageous amounts of employee taxes, collecting confiscatory amounts of income tax, etc.
Kind of hard to compete internationally when you have a communist dictator for the leader of your country who seems to think any kind of profit you make should be siphoned off to fatten his home district.
A lot of Canadian businesses are going under and/or being sold simply because of the crap economy to the North, and the level of taxation and red tape there is choking the life out of what's left.
But you can sell used underwear that has been worn by young women in vending machines.